I decided years ago that if I'm going to keep teaching contemplation, then the last years of my life should be contemplative.

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.

Your heart has to be prepared ahead of time through faith and prayer and grace and mercy and love and forgiveness so you can keep your heart open in hell, when hell happens.

Denial of our pattern of failure seems to be a kind of practical atheism or chosen ignorance among many believers and clergy.

If you work with such people almost on the level of spiritual direction, you see that they are people who prefer a world view of order and even punitiveness. And for some reason, there's a feeling that the male psyche is going to give that to them. And if that's your view of religion, which it is for many people, if they've never come to the mystical level, religion is for social order and to maintain social order.

The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.

We do not make or create our souls, we just grow them up.